


say you love me

by utsu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Anal Sex, College, Dancer AU, Domestic Fluff, Drabble Collection, Fingering, Fire Alarm Shenanigans, Introspection, M/M, Oral Sex, Red String of Fate, Uniforms, doctor oikawa and patient kuroo, everything sort of happened so quickly i'm so sorry, heelys, the works
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-11 11:43:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3326156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utsu/pseuds/utsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This will be a series of drabbles, namely coming from oikuro week over on tumblr; yet I'm constantly in the oikuro realm so who's to say I won't add to it later on  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theme: Fate
> 
> “Haven’t you ever heard of the red string of fate?”

A year ago, Oikawa Tooru would have never guessed that he’d ever even entertain the idea of spending time alone with Kuroo Tetsurou, let alone every  _day_.

But somehow, like a splinter, Kuroo had dug deep and found himself a home under Oikawa’s skin.

He is everywhere Oikawa looks, even when he isn’t actually in front of him.

He is in the smell of fresh-cut grass because of that one time he had somehow convinced Oikawa to play a round on the local golf course so early in the morning not even God had been awake yet. He is in the every now and again rush of air, cool and brisk, when a stranger passes Oikawa by, bringing chills up along the nape of his neck. He is the every blood-red horizon pooling over the draining sky.

Oikawa glances over to his side and watches as Kuroo yawns, long and loud like a lion. Just a moment later and the big cat analogy falls short as Kuroo wrinkles his nose and sighs, looking more like a kitten than anything else.

He catches Oikawa’s gaze wonderingly, asks, “Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout?”

“Cats.” He responds, fingers lacing beneath his chin, eyes narrowing. “What about you?”

Kuroo raises a brow and though his eyes are still heavy with sleep they’re also bright with something Oikawa can’t really decipher this early in the morning. The sun’s still slowly marching its way across the sky, birds fluttering outside the café looking for twigs and day-old pieces of gum for their nests. Oikawa runs a hand through his hair and doesn’t hide the smile that curls over his lips, slow-moving like a sigh.

“Sleep,” Kuroo groans, nestling back further into his massive red sweatshirt. “My bed. Food.”

“Boring.” Oikawa drags the word out like a song, rolls his eyes and returns to chewing on the straw of his iced mocha cappuccino. He scratches at his side and slurps at his straw until he tastes the bottom of his cup, the leftover tufts of whipped cream wrapped around squares of ice.

After a heavy sigh, Oikawa flashes Kuroo a surefire grin and says, “Well, duty calls.”

He stands and adjusts his bag, wraps a hand around his cup and turns with a halfhearted wave over his shoulder, the only acknowledgement Kuroo gets. He knows it’s a game, knows that Oikawa would never just walk away and expect Kuroo to  _let him_ , not without some sort of affectionate rejoinder. He knows this, so he stays.

He watches Oikawa’s steps slow, marginally, watches his shoulders tense as he disposes of his cup and gets closer and closer to the entrance, watches him walk out of the shop, and even still, he stays.

Oikawa heads to class alone and untouched and tries not to show it, but it’s there sitting in his stomach like a stone, weighing him down, turning him sluggish, wilting his tree branch shoulders.

Disappointment.

 

✧

 

“Tooru, hold up,” at his name, Oikawa turns and pretends like his cheeks aren’t stained pink and his heart isn’t in his throat, fluttering like a prisoner about to escape.

“Yeah?”

“Here,” Kuroo says, coming to a stop right in front of him and offering a shy smile, slightly abashed though Oikawa doesn’t know what for. He reaches out and for a moment Oikawa thinks that he is going to place his hand over Oikawa’s heart, his eyes wide and his mouth dropping open just enough to let a quick breath escape. But Kuroo’s fingers don’t linger long enough for his palm to make contact, rather he plucks at something on the collar of Oikawa’s shirt and his hand comes away with a single strand of red thread.

He glances from the thread and back down to Oikawa, his cheeks flaming. He shrugs halfheartedly at the look Oikawa gives him, merely says, “You had this on you all morning.”

Oikawa’s eyes trace the sharp slash of Kuroo’s eyes and drop to the thread hanging from his long fingers, idly twisting.

“Ah,” he says, trying to get his heart back under control without letting Kuroo know that anything is different at all in the first place. He clears his throat, eyes still tracing the thread for a moment before coming back up to see Kuroo’s a step behind, trailing up Oikawa’s throat, over the crest of his cheekbone and back to his eyes. “Thanks.”

Oikawa reaches out and pinches the thread between his fingers, clenching his jaw. He drops the thread and doesn’t watch it flutter to the ground, rather he glances off to the side, unable to meet Kuroo’s searching gaze when his heart’s still too close to slipping off his tongue, through his teeth, into the air between them. He watches the movement of the people around them, those shopping at vendors and those heading towards unknown destinations, everyone with somewhere to be. He runs a hand through his hair and scratches idly at the back of his neck.

“Do I get a reward?”

Eyes flashing, surprised and disbelieving, Oikawa meets Kuroo’s gaze and laughs. Kuroo’s cheeks are red and his lips are pushed to the side, almost as if he’d been trying to keep those words locked away, but his eyes stare unblinkingly, heavy and tired but piercing in a way that Oikawa still can’t figure out. Kuroo is the only person Oikawa knows that can be bone-weary and exhausted and still manage to look intent with only a glance.

“A reward?” Oikawa scoffs, shaking his head and readjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, a nervous habit he can’t break. “You’re gonna have to work harder than that, Tetsu-chan.”

Without waiting for Kuroo’s response or reaction, Oikawa turns and determinedly heads towards his first class, not looking back, even once—payback.

Kuroo watches the familiar line of Oikawa’s shoulders walk away from him, the seaside sway of his hips, the casual grace of every step, and puts his hands in his pockets.

He smiles.

 

✧

 

Oikawa feels the armrest digging into his tailbone, his shoulder blades pressing hard against the window. There’s a streetlight several yards away that just barely reaches their taillights, the fine fingers of it filtering through the rear window. Kuroo bites at his lips, his tongue running against the fronts of Oikawa’s teeth and he’s hot and cornered and he can’t even  _think_.

Kuroo’s hands are strong; they’re the first part of Kuroo that Oikawa ever actually paid attention to, balanced and secure under a volleyball, restless on a tabletop, steady on his skin. He threads his fingers through Oikawa’s hair, right above his ears, and holds his face still as he bites at Oikawa’s upper lip.

Oikawa moans, he can’t help it; his heart is a beast inside of him hungry for more of, well,  _everything_. Kuroo’s hands, his lips, his tongue and teeth and the intent angle of his hips pressed so close to Oikawa’s, cradled against his groin—he’s hungry for it all.

“Ahh,” he gasps, his cheeks flaming, his hands shaking. It’s still embarrassing, to this day, that hands as steady as his refuse to stay so in the face of everything that is Kuroo Tetsurou. All Kuroo has to do is smile just right, with one side ticked up higher than the other, sunlight dancing over his features, and Oikawa feels his control slipping through the cracks. Quaking bones and hairline fractures all over his skin—in front of Kuroo and his devastating smile, Oikawa shifts from a contained storm and becomes quivering aftershocks.

Oikawa wraps his hands around Kuroo’s shoulders, digs under his shirt, and drags his nails against his skin. Kuroo hisses against him and it’s not an unpleasant sound, makes Oikawa feel heady and powerful. The deepest scratch comes from the ring finger of his right hand, a straight red thread directly over his heart.

Kuroo leans down, kisses his way over Oikawa’s jaw until his mouth is hovering over the pulse beating in his neck and says, “Yeah,  _yeah_.”

Oikawa hears more than feels his button being popped, his zipper being pulled. He opens his eyes and sees the whirlwind of black hair shifting in front of him as Kuroo continues to suck on his neck, his hand steady and sure as he reaches beneath the waistband of Oikawa’s briefs.

He bites his lip when Kuroo’s hand reaches him, wraps around and slides his thumb along the underside until he’s nudging at the head of him, exhaling against the tender skin of his throat. Oikawa’s body bends, bows up towards Kuroo, pushes himself further against him, uncaring of the way his shoulder blades dig further into the window, or the fact that anyone can walk by and see them, even if it is late at night and they’re right outside of Oikawa’s apartment.

Kuroo kisses his way down to Oikawa’s collarbone as his hand starts to piston, kissing the bony line and curve of it and breathing soft words Oikawa can barely hear against his skin. He wraps his legs around Kuroo’s waist, presses them as close together as he can without hindering Kuroo’s hand, his progress.

He opens his eyes when he feels Kuroo’s lips leave his skin, focuses in on the haze of lust that throws Kuroo’s expression into shadows, his bright eyes, his open mouth. He licks his bottom lip and watches Oikawa’s panting breaths, watches the heat spread over the bridge of his nose and knows from experience that it’s touching the tips of his ears.

Kuroo does something with his thumb that makes Oikawa sob, makes his face shatter with pleasure, makes him think of the first day of summer and volleyball championships and  _winning_ , and Kuroo swallows his expression whole.

Oikawa opens his eyes and sees the fond expression bleeding through the lust on Kuroo’s face, focuses in on his lips as they wrap around words he’s never expected to hear from Kuroo.

“Love you,” he says, and he’s so sincere and  _brash_  about it that it makes Oikawa start to cry, makes him bite down on his lip and moan through his teeth as he climaxes between them. Kuroo laughs—a quiet morning, dew on the grass kind of laugh—and Oikawa leans forward and tastes the salt of his upper lip.

“Idiot,” he whispers, sniffling, nudging their foreheads together and closing his eyes as Kuroo rests against him, still hard and flustered and out of breath but content to move in Oikawa’s time.

Oikawa keeps his eyes closed, feels tear tracks slide down his cheeks, knows without having to look that Kuroo’s eyes are open. He nudges their noses together, embarrassingly affectionate, and whispers, “Me too.”

The red line of skin torn over Kuroo’s heart beads and leaves a scarlet stain against his crisp white shirt, which he doesn’t find until much later that night.

When he discovers it, he doesn’t mind.

He just laughs.

 

✧

 

“Why does this always happen?” Oikawa huffs, holding the long red thread between his fingertips, right in front of his eyes. He refocuses around it on Kuroo’s amused ochre eyes and frowns. “What are you laughing at? This is your fault! I don’t wear red very often.”

“Maybe,” Kuroo admits, grinning. “But don’t you find it kind of ironic?”

“Ironic?” Oikawa asks, purposely skeptical. He raises an eyebrow and casually pockets the red thread; he pretends like he doesn’t notice the way Kuroo watches him do so, or the way Kuroo grins because of it. He sniffs.

“Well, we ran into each other when we first met, remember? I was wearing my red sweatshirt and a red thread rubbed off on you. And like now, almost every time we’re together, we find a red thread somewhere on our clothing.”

Oikawa stares at him, blinking slowly. “I still don’t see the irony. You wear a lot of red.”

Kuroo rolls his eyes, still grinning. “Haven’t you ever heard of the red string of fate?”

Oikawa pauses, deliberate, and turns his eyes away. He pretends to contemplate, even brings a hand up to his chin while he thinks. He can feel Kuroo’s eyes on his face, burning a hole in him, all too knowing. He hums and shakes his head, says, “The what?”

Kuroo knows that Oikawa knows what he’s talking about, and he also knows that Oikawa is pretending not to know what he’s talking about because he’s a difficult person by nature. Still, for some strange reason Kuroo can’t put into words, he finds Oikawa Tooru amusing—even more than that, he finds him  _endearing_ , difficult personality and all. Maybe it’s his inherent love of games or his cunning nature, easily as innate, but something about the challenge of Oikawa—who absolutely refuses to show him the same level of affection in public as he does behind closed doors—makes him feel refreshed and invigorated.

It’s a game he’s all too interested in playing; the rewards of Oikawa’s blush, of making him lose his cool and start tripping over his words, of his jumpy responses to Kuroo’s tender touches against his shoulders, his nape, his tailbone—all of it lights a fire under his skin.

So instead of giving a proper answer, because he knows Oikawa doesn’t actually need it and now that they’re playing again he plans to win, he says, “Look it up later,” and he moves in close, crowding Oikawa back against his own apartment door. He watches Oikawa swallow and feels his own cheeks begin to heat, his heart thundering in his chest. “I think it fits us.”

Oikawa rolls his eyes, playing it cool. He blows a burst of air up at his bangs and says, “Sure, okay, I’ll look it up later. Doesn’t sound cute at all, though.”

Kuroo smiles and thinks  _you’re cute_  and is glad that for once his thought remains his own and doesn’t become something he’s accidentally said. He glances down to Oikawa’s lips and leans in slowly, gives Oikawa plenty of time to turn away if he wants to. Instead, Oikawa tilts his chin up, just slightly, his amber eyes wide and bright as Kuroo’s lips touch his, soft and sweet.

Kuroo pulls back just enough to be able to speak, his lips moving against Oikawa’s as he says, “I’ll call you tomorrow, Tooru.”

Oikawa’s eyes are on Kuroo’s lips, crossing slightly at their close proximity. His breath smells like fruit loops and his lips are chapped but for some reason Kuroo can’t get enough of him, leans back in and kisses him a little more thoroughly, a proper good morning, a teasing goodbye.

He presses their foreheads together and pats Oikawa’s pocket, smiling so fondly down at Oikawa that his eyes squint almost completely shut when he says, “Keep that safe for us.”

For a flicker of a moment Oikawa looks scandalized and a little impressed but then he remembers the little red thread in his pocket and his cheeks become a canvas of spilled paint, red from ear to ear. He looks down at the ground and nods his head, a quick jerky motion, clearly embarrassed. Kuroo leans back, equally as embarrassed to have been the one to have said something so cheesy, and tucks his hands in his pockets. He nods his head and turns, heading down the steps towards the street where his car is still parked. He yawns on the way down, feels Oikawa’s eyes on his back.

When he gets to the gate, he turns over his shoulder and waves to Oikawa, who waves back with a smirk before crossing his arms over his chest. Kuroo walks to his car, gets in, and drives off in a matter of minutes, leaving Oikawa standing atop his front steps in an old shirt of Kuroo’s and his jeans from the night before, trying not to smile.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the little read string, unfurls it to work out the knots, and holds it between his two thumbs and pointer fingers. It’s a short, tiny, useless thing, really. Just a stray thread of a sweatshirt that Kuroo had been wearing when he rubbed up against Oikawa, something that could have just as easily fallen to the ground and been as lost to them as it was found.

And yet, somehow, the longer Oikawa looks at it, the more it feels like something special. He runs his finger over it in contemplation, finally letting that unbidden smile break free, brightening his entire expression like a slow sunrise.

“Red string of fate,” he says aloud, shaking his head. “What a dork.”

Even still, he tucks that little red string back into his pocket.

And then he laughs. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theme: Uniforms  
> (explicit)
> 
> “You look like a poorly wrapped birthday present.” He admits, and amusement flitters across his face and allows for mischief to settle once again. “But a present to be unwrapped all the same.”
> 
> Kuroo rolls his eyes, pretends like both of them don’t know he’s blushing.
> 
> “Ridiculous,” he says, but his eyes are sharp, too, and he doesn’t need words for Oikawa to understand his intentions. Still, as he is like to do, Oikawa makes him work for it.

Kuroo Tetsurou is indolent by nature, and this fact does not change even when he’s being awarded in front of hundreds of the most important coworkers and superiors he knows. So instead of fussing over whether or not his uniform is straight (it’s not) and if there are wrinkles (there are), he simply winks at himself in the mirror and groans, dropping his face into his hands.

He looks like a clown; he  _feels_  like a clown.

His uniform is stark black from knee-high boots, to his fitted trousers, all the way to the collar lying flat and cuffed tight like a noose around his throat. Eight gleaming gold buttons flicker in the light, twin plates atop his shoulders following suit, the golden sparkle of them all a glaring contrast to his entirely onyx ensemble. His hair looks exactly as it always does, tussled and in a mildly concerning state of disarray that he thinks makes him look charming.

Sighing, he turns away from the mirror with a shrug and heads into the hallway, listening as the music coming from the main room gets louder and louder as he approaches.

What’s so fun about a fancy gala anyways? There are no giant robots, no monstrous creatures threatening his drop score, and he’s forced to wear clothes too tight for his frame with layers enough to make him sweat even in the brisk chill of winter. He flexes his shoulders and feels the strain of the material pulling, wonders if it would be more comfortable to just let the material rip and wear it like a new trend. As he continues towards the main room where glasses clink together and champagne continues to pour like endless glistening fountains, he contemplates all the reasons why he doesn’t belong at parties.

First of all, he doesn’t know the proper way to navigate a party. He hasn’t a clue what the proper mannerisms are or how to interact with people that are not only used to wearing uncomfortable clothing but actually enjoy it. Then of course is the massively embarrassing fact that he doesn’t know his way around a dance floor. And lastly, he usually can’t find the energy to talk about anything outside of mechanics and tech, which he’s fairly certain no one at this party is going to be interested in.

Drop him into an elegant ballroom and tell him to mingle and he feels like a fish being told to climb a tree, but throw him in the helm of a Jaeger and he’ll make 2000 tons of alloy and metal processing  _sing_.

He turns and stops in front of two wide set, iron framed doors intricately forged into woodland shapes and heaves a mighty sigh, letting his shoulders hunch forward. He rests his head down against his chest and closes his eyes, doesn’t even move when people start to pile up behind him with questions on their tongues and suspicion in their eyes.

After a long moment of self-motivating, Kuroo flexes his shoulders back and straightens his posture, reaching out and putting both hands on either door, preparing to step through the threshold into a world he neither understands nor feels comfortable in.

Piloting a Jaeger is  _so_  much easier than this.

Kuroo inhales and steps into the battlefield.

 

✧

 

“You’re uniform is a travesty, dear,” an older woman purses her lips at him, patting a fragile hand against his chest where he doesn’t even have to glance down to know there are wrinkles. He smiles at her, aiming to win her over with his captivating personality.

“It’s the weather,” he explains, in a highly dependable tone. “Humidity, and all that. Makes it shrink up a little, and uh, wrinkle. Like this.”

“The weather,” she repeats, blue eyes disappearing behind what looks to be the most sarcastic blinking motion Kuroo has ever seen in his  _life_. “Humidity.”

“Yeah, yes, ma’am. Definitely the weather.”

She nods her head, lips still pursed, and casually excuses herself from his presence. He doesn’t turn to watch her leave, feels his eye start to twitch and wonders what Iwaizumi, the chief mechanic of his Jaeger, is doing. Probably still installing additional plating where the last Kaiju had struck hard enough to create a weakness, since it hadn’t been able to find one otherwise.

Kuroo stands beside the buffet table in his elegant suit, posture tight, and thinks about the cockpit of his Jaeger, Nu Horizon. He thinks about the feeling of being locked into the harness, of feeling the freefall of the drop, of initiating the neural handshake and suddenly all he sees is a young boy with fluffy brunette hair and a smile too large for his face, running after a boy with black hair and a toy truck in his hands, laughter like the first days of summer between them, a flash of torrential rain coming down and flooding the place, a young boy with delicate skin and steady hands screaming, the silence of the moment when Kuroo turns to look over his shoulder and see his co-pilot in his drivesuit for the first time, all long lean lines of beautiful grace, the flickering images of their bodies in the dark, less of an image and more of an audio track, each of them out of breath and panting, trying to keep up, sweat glistening.

Kuroo clears his throat, flushing up to his ears. He should’ve known better than to think of that here when his thoughts are guaranteed to take him to that memory, right back to the center of him, their first night and then any number of the rest, shared and constantly on the surface of his mind. It’s not like he’s the only one constantly  _remembering_ , though—his co-pilot does enough of that to give Kuroo first degree burns from blushing so much.

Even still, he finds himself thinking about the Drift more and more as days pass. Of course there’s the curiosity of the secrets of his co-pilot’s life, of getting to see his most intimate memories and desolately, his most tragic, of sharing everything with him. But there’s also a cursory curiosity in Kuroo about the Nu Horizon herself, about being able to jump into the mind of a monster with someone else and make that monster an extension of his own mind and body, narrowing his focus to something condensed and dangerous; it thrills him; add that to the fact that his co-pilot is equally as enthusiastic and arguably even more eager to try new and perilous techniques and Kuroo has his hands full.

Speaking of, he turns over his shoulder and raises a brow as he glances around the room, ochre eyes searching for those fluffy brunette tendrils not even a helmet can contain. He turns again, still searching, and finds a mischievous pair of tawny eyes staring back through the crowd. There’s a large group around him and he’s laughing, charming and charismatic, though even from this distance Kuroo can see a few members of the group looking at him skeptically, as if after meeting him they’re suspicious of whether or not he’s the real deal after all.

It made sense, Kuroo thinks, smiling back at his co-pilot from across the room, since Oikawa does have a very  _unique_  personality. Regardless, he’s one of the best Jaeger pilots Kuroo has ever seen and it had been more than a privilege, an  _honor_ , to get the news that he was drift compatible with him. Difficult personality and all, Oikawa is incredible when it comes to operating a Jaeger and protecting the lives of the innocent.

Kuroo watches with a lazy blink as Oikawa disentangles himself from his group, waving over his shoulder at them and heading towards him with a cunning grin. He’s dressed in an identical uniform to Kuroo, an entirely black ensemble, with one additional piece: a scarlet cape that falls to the backs of his knees and buttons in front of his throat. Kuroo studies it with a curious eye and a tilted brow, resting one hand on his hip and the other at his side as Oikawa finally comes to stand before him.

His eyes trace over every line of Oikawa, an open exploration that Oikawa revels in. Kuroo touches upon his boots for a moment, trails up Oikawa’s muscled legs to his thin waist and tapered shoulders. Every line of Oikawa’s uniform fits him perfectly with no sign of wrinkles or disarray. He fills out his trousers better than Kuroo has ever even  _dreamed_  and his shoulders are wide and strong underneath the drapery of his cape. The stark black of his ensemble paired with the royal scarlet of his cape makes him appear as some upper-class nobility, and Kuroo knows without hesitation that Oikawa knows it and loves it.

“You look like a concierge,” Kuroo says, raising a brow and eyeing the pristine shine of Oikawa’s mother of pearl buttons, the crisp lines of his black uniform, tailored to perfection over his muscular form. As if his heart isn’t racing behind the cage of his ribs—as if he has everything completely under control and isn’t only thinking about how much he’d like to remove that grand uniform from Oikawa’s beautiful body.

Oikawa scoffs, shrugging one of his shoulders. “Please,” he says, “I look dashing.”

Kuroo just snorts, smirking over at his co-pilot. Oikawa smiles, a cat’s grin, leonine and sharp. His eyes drop down the entire length of Kuroo slow and steady, taking in every detail, down to the very last wrinkle. His gaze is heated when it returns to Kuroo’s and there’s something looming in the amber depths that makes Kuroo swallow in anticipation.

“You look like a poorly wrapped birthday present.” He admits, and amusement flitters across his face and allows for mischief to settle once again. “But a present to be unwrapped all the same.”

Kuroo rolls his eyes, pretends like both of them don’t know he’s blushing.

“Ridiculous,” he says, but his eyes are sharp, too, and he doesn’t need words for Oikawa to understand his intentions. Still, as he is like to do, Oikawa makes him work for it.

He says, “Well, too bad we’re at this party and all. And we  _did_  just get here. Otherwise I’d say let’s head home.”

He shrugs, touching upon the words with an added airiness that stirs Kuroo up inside, makes him bite down on his lip.

“I hate parties,” Kuroo mutters quietly, glancing around the room to make sure no one but his co-pilot had heard him. Seemingly safe, he turns back to Oikawa and blinks at the expression on his face and the way he’s rubbing at his jaw with deft fingers. There’s an idea forming, there, and Kuroo isn’t sure if he should like where he thinks it’s going or run from it. The thought is as silly as the outfit he’s wearing; of course he won’t run from it.

From Oikawa.

“Oh,” Oikawa breathes, a singsong laugh, eyes glittering. “You just haven’t been to the right ones yet.”

“I’m pretty sure I’ll be bored at any party.”

“Mm,” Oikawa hums, and he steps in close, uncaring of bystanders. He lets his finger trail along the sharp edge of Kuroo’s jaw line, down the strong expanse of his throat. He threads his fingers into Kuroo’s hair and pulls his head back a little so that he has to look down his nose to see Oikawa’s expression.

“I’ll take you to a party you’ll love.”

Kuroo snorts, shaking his head. All the same, he says, “Doubt it.”

He steps back and Kuroo misses the heat of his touch and the alluring brush of his cologne immediately.

Oikawa reaches forward and wraps his supine fingers around Kuroo’s wrist, gentle and sure, and gives him a playful tug.

He turns over his shoulder and smirks at Kuroo and suddenly Kuroo remembers the Drift, remembers that sharp-eyed expression, that particular smirk, feels the heat of his overworked body and sweat-slicked skin, the rapid pulse of his heart in his chest and the rapidly expanding and deflating of his lungs, begging for oxygen, and that expression sharp and barbed like a rose peering over him with a Cheshire grin and for the first time tonight he feels  _excited_.

He remembers that expression  _intimately_.

 

✧

 

“Come on, come on,” Oikawa sings, throwing a smirk over his shoulder. His cheeks are pink but his eyes are sharp in a way that has Kuroo’s heart pounding quicker, his blood racing through his veins. He doesn’t look at anyone but Oikawa, lets him tug him along by his wrist, his grip strong and sure. He winds them through a maze of hallways until Kuroo isn’t quite certain that Oikawa knows where he’s going anymore until he comes to a stop in front of a door and pulls out a  _key_.

He unlocks the deadbolt and opens the door with a cunning slash of a smile, gesturing for Kuroo to precede him. He does, tentatively, peering into the room and studying the scraps of metal and titanium, the rusted tools and the old-fashioned blinds covering the only window in the room, right beside the door. Kuroo had thought that they’d walked quite a distance, but now that they’re in a room shrouded in silence he can focus back on the booming of the party, closer than he expects it to be. Close enough that they can still hear voices.

“Some party,” Kuroo says, utterly sarcastic. He turns and raises a brow at a rusted toolbox that’s almost unrecognizable in the corner of the room. Oikawa’s only verbal response is to hum, to say, “You’ll see.”

He comes up behind Kuroo and presses his lips to the side of his neck, standing on the tips of his toes to manage it. Kuroo exhales, subconsciously tilts his head to allow Oikawa better access, and tilts his way without even realizing exactly what he’s doing. Oikawa’s hands come down to rest against his narrow hips, squeezing once before moving around to rest low on his abdomen.

“Tooru,” Kuroo warns, eyes peering open to glance through the slits between the blinds, seeing the flickering of shadows intermixed with streams of light. “People are still outside, and they’re close.”

“Well then you better keep quiet,” Oikawa whispers, traces a line up Kuroo’s throat with his tongue, tasting the salt of him. Kuroo shivers, centers himself squarely on his feet so he won’t fall over and rests his hands and his forehead against the wall. He’s close enough to the window that he can see sideways through the blinds, watches random patrons walk by with champagne flutes in hand and laughs bubbling up their throats.

Oikawa’s hands remain pressed against Kuroo’s lower abdomen for longer than he expects, long enough for Kuroo to suck a hickey so dark no foundation will be able to completely disguise it right above the line of Kuroo’s collar. And yet, in this moment, he’s too enraptured with the skill of Oikawa’s lips to care; his fingertips press against the plaster of the wall where a few papers are pinned, the crinkling bringing back some clarity he desperately feels he needs.

He makes to turn around, wanting to taste Oikawa’s lips, wondering if he’ll be sweet and fruity today or minty fresh—all depending on which brand of gum he’d been chewing.

“Don’t move,” Oikawa presses the words into the skin of Kuroo’s neck, a delicious brand, and Kuroo obeys without hesitation, his body stilling. He smiles, a little shakily, wondering what Oikawa has planned for him. He’s eager, probably embarrassingly so, but in this position it’s not like Oikawa can even see his expression anyways.

“Tetsu-chan, are you smiling?” Oikawa laughs, and Kuroo feels his cheeks heat all the way to the tips of his ears, his smile fracturing down into a surprised and mostly discomfited frown. Oikawa puts his lips just beside Kuroo’s ear, tugs playfully at the lobe of it, and says, “I know you better than you know yourself.”

“Debatable,” Kuroo breathes, but it’s shattered and breathy and Oikawa hasn’t even started  _touching_  him yet. He’s already hard, though, that much is apparent. He curls his fists against the wall, accidentally knocking one piece of paper down to the ground.

“You think so?” Oikawa laughs and Kuroo thinks of champagne, of celebration, of dancing and singing and symphonies.

Kuroo swallows, tries to respond and realizes that if he does it’s going to be even more embarrassing than if he  _doesn’t_ , so—he doesn’t. He merely waits for Oikawa to move against him, eyes sliding shut when Oikawa presses his erection against Kuroo’s ass and rubs it there in slow circles, a tantalizing, teasing gesture.

At long last when Kuroo thinks that Oikawa isn’t going to touch him at all, he moves his hands until they’re slipping past the waistband of Kuroo’s trousers, exploring territory he knows all too well. His fingertips are chilly and eager and they wrap around Kuroo’s cock without hesitation, sending a shock up through his system and making him hiss between his teeth. Oikawa releases him instantly and Kuroo grits his teeth at the loss of his grip, opens his eyes and looks over his shoulder to see what secrets Oikawa’s eyes are trying to hide from him.

For once, there isn’t an inkling of a secret to be found in those eyes, a shade like sunlight streaming through a glass of whisky; instead he finds them heated, intent, the eyes of a pilot preparing for battle and knowing without a single doubt that victory belongs to him. His hands make short work of Kuroo’s elegant golden buttons, reach up and pull his heavy coat from his shoulders and toss it onto a spare part across the room. Kuroo flexes his shoulders under his crisp white shirt, relieved to be free of the confining material of his tailcoat, though the relief is short-lived.

Oikawa takes his relief and turns it into anticipation, coiled tight and thick in the center of Kuroo’s chest, a raging flame heating him from the inside out. Oikawa’s hands do not touch a single button on Kuroo’s white undershirt; he moves them down and over Kuroo’s chest, rubbing deft fingertips over pert nipples, and slides them down the streamline strip of Kuroo’s abdomen.

He delves into Kuroo’s trousers without pause and then before Kuroo can even inhale in elated surprise, the fingers of Oikawa’s right hand are wrapped around his cock while his left pushes Kuroo’s trousers down haphazardly until they’re stretched around his lower thighs. Oikawa pauses, hand still gripping him, and snorts in his ear.

“You’re not wearing underwear?”

Kuroo grins and looks astonishingly poised when he says, “You can’t wear underwear with these pants.”

Oikawa stares at him, hands still frozen on Kuroo’s hip and cock, and then he bursts out laughing, resting his forehead against the crest of Kuroo’s great shoulder.

“Oh my god, Tetsu-chan, you’re so  _lewd_.”

Kuroo flushes, bites on his lip and watches the way Oikawa’s eyes sparkle and suddenly he doesn’t care anymore about his own embarrassment or about this underwear debacle that his co-pilot will probably never let him live down. If he gets to see those eyes lit bright with amusement, with joy and contentment at something that Kuroo has done, then whatever the consequences of that action, he’ll pay for them in full.

He leans back a little, twists his heavy shoulders, disobeying in this one miniscule way; he presses his lips to Oikawa’s open grin still poised in laughter, watches the way his eyes slowly slide shut in response. He pulls back and watches those heated honey eyes slowly open and pin him in place, his lips curling into a devious smirk that makes Kuroo, who is renowned for his cunning nature, quite proud—and also quite keen.

“You’re so sweet, Tetsu,” Oikawa whispers, eyes half-lidded in desire, and in promise. “But I told you not to move.”

Kuroo swallows at the way Oikawa’s eyes shift, like a churning storm, electric and hair-raising. He feels more than sees Oikawa press closer against him, his muscled form hard and strong against every line of Kuroo’s back, his hand slowly starting to stroke Kuroo’s cock with renewed vigor. He slows and runs his thumb along the base of him, up and over the slight ridge of his cockhead, smearing the first pearls of precome over Kuroo’s slit. Kuroo groans through his teeth, he can’t help it, and clenches the muscles of his core when Oikawa starts to work him hard and fast, his technique expert and familiar and everything Kuroo’s ever dreamed of.

He keens low and deep in his throat, huffing against the wall Oikawa is pressing him against. He starts to move his hips, trying to get the most out of Oikawa’s touch as he possibly can. Every thrust of his hips makes his ass bump against Oikawa’s groin, his erection, and Kuroo flushes in satisfaction when he hears Oikawa groan.

Kuroo feels the tendrils of his orgasm start to gradually unravel in his core, in his groin, and he squeezes his eyes shut and waits for the final push as he thrusts harder into Oikawa’s hand, ignoring the crescent shaped nail marks digging into his left hip as Oikawa holds him tight. A disjointed thrust knocks him further against Oikawa’s erection with a slow, off-balance slide that makes Oikawa’s breath expel in a burst against the heated skin of Kuroo’s neck, just beginning to slick with sweat.

It is this one response that seems to be a game-changer, however, as Oikawa immediately removes both of his hands from Kuroo’s body, leaving him balancing on the precipice with a high-pitched sob. Kuroo’s lips open around what he knows are going to be pleading words but when he turns and his eyes focus back on Oikawa the words get swallowed back down and fall bottomless into the pit of his chest where his heart stutters and tries to find a balanced rhythm. His eyes drop to Oikawa’s open fly, to the flushed head of his erect cock now straining free from his trousers, and back up to the incredibly adorable flush across the bridge of his nose.

Adorable his blushing face may be, Kuroo thinks, but upon meeting his stare he can think of nothing else but thrashing waves thousands of miles out into the ocean, tearing apart the seafloor simply because it can, the wreckage of its rampage unknown to those on the shore looking out at the horizon overhead with content smiles—there is a similar stillness that Kuroo feels standing in front of this expression on Oikawa’s face, as though he’s standing on the shore looking out at the beautiful horizon of Oikawa’s blushing face and missing entirely the looming storm thrashing just beneath it in the sharp angles of his eyes.

“You can turn around, Tetsu-chan.” Saccharine sweet, Oikawa’s voice has the same mysterious veil of danger that his eyes are holding and Kuroo doesn’t have to think twice before obeying it. He turns to face Oikawa completely, still out of breath, still erect, a single bead of sweat moving down his sideburn as he waits for Oikawa’s next move. It comes in the form of a smile, sincere and pleased, a clear reward.

“Show me how you do it,” he says, licking his lips and letting his eyes trail down to the split of Kuroo’s undershirt parting just over his straining erection. He lifts a tentative hand to his own cock and gives a single stroke, flushing down his neck to the tops of his collarbones. This isn’t the first time that he has masturbated in front of Oikawa, or vice versa, but there’s something incredibly alluring and equally dangerous in the depths of Oikawa’s eyes and Kuroo finds himself a little breathless wanting to obey it—to  _please_  him.

He says, “Alright.” And keeps his eyes on Oikawa as he starts to work himself up, unconsciously biting on his lower lip when he rekindles that tingling sensation that had led him straight to the edge of his orgasm, finding it with ease. Oikawa watches him work himself with greedy eyes and a shy smile, breathing through his mouth in quiet huffs. He doesn’t touch himself, not once, and Kuroo finds his curiosity about this fact an aphrodisiac all its own.

He flinches with a sudden teasing spark in the core of him, a fraction of something that could be incredible, and Oikawa’s eyes take it in greedily and put an end to it the next moment.

“Stop,” he whispers, and there’s no essence of command to his tone anymore, just simple fascination that he has this kind of power of Kuroo after all, that with his voice alone he can  _command_. He lifts a hand and makes a twirling gesture and Kuroo groans, low and deep, but the flare of Oikawa’s eyes makes him still, makes him listen. The storm is still there, the roaring tempest hidden in the golden hues and some day Kuroo wants to upset those tides, wants to see what happens when he does.

But not today. In this moment he is perfectly content to obey.

He turns back around without any other expression of objection, puts his palms flat against the wall in front of him and listens as Oikawa approaches him. He feels those deft hands pulling his trousers further down his legs until they’re resting around his ankles and he thinks he looks ridiculous with half of them tucked into his knee-high boots and the waist of them looped around his ankles.

However, he soon forgets entirely about how ridiculous he must look because he feels the teasing graze of Oikawa’s finger slide down his bare tailbone, feels it twist and delve and push until he’s got a single finger up to his second knuckle in Kuroo’s ass and Kuroo has to remind himself how to  _breathe_. It’s not long after the first that a second finger is added, and then a third; every one of Oikawa’s ministrations is gentle and ostensibly careful and Kuroo doesn’t know if he’s more touched or frustrated because a part of him thinks that Oikawa, even when he’s acting like a tyrant, is effortlessly tender—and the other part of him thinks that if Oikawa doesn’t hurry up and start  _moving_  those fingers then they’re going to have a problem.

As it turns out, Oikawa is also effortlessly familiar with the inner workings of Kuroo’s mind and his latter thought hasn’t even completely formed when Oikawa begins to stretch him, begins to piston with careful adjustments until Kuroo’s panting breaths start to become full grown  _moans_.

“Shh,” Oikawa hushes him, lifting his free hand to push some of Kuroo’s stray hairs out of his face, kissing at his neck. “You’ve gotta be quiet, Tetsu.”

“Fuck,” Kuroo answers, beautifully eloquent. Oikawa laughs against him, deep and throaty. He continues to stretch Kuroo, to work him until he’s pressing himself up against the wall and his voice is loud enough that the room is throwing it back at them in an echo. Oikawa tries to shush him again, caught somewhere between amused and terribly turned on. When someone in the hallway pauses just outside their window and thinks about turning to check the door before shrugging and moving on, Oikawa decides that he has to take matters into his own hands.

“If you can’t be quiet,” he says as he removes his fingers from Kuroo’s hole, ignoring the way he groans at the loss of them, and moving to turn Kuroo around by his shoulder. He exerts pressure there, pushing down on Kuroo’s shoulder until he gets the idea and his eyes widen big and bright, surprised and eager. “Then I’ll make you be quiet.”

Kuroo stares up at Oikawa from his knees, eyes slightly glassy and heavily lidded from the sheer number of times Oikawa has brought him to the edge of an orgasm only to pull him right back and away. Oikawa’s words have returned to that commanding lilt but there’s something in the undertone of them, something like a question, as though he’s asking Kuroo for permission. Kuroo knows that this is a combination of factors at play; that his intuition when it comes to Oikawa is almost always correct, that they know each other better than anyone else in the world, that even when they’re not in the Drift locked into one another’s minds they can still hear the echoes of one another’s thoughts. Their connection is like that, close enough to be an almost constant drift, and though the idea seems at first quite daunting—a huge loss in personal privacy—Kuroo has learned to see it as a wonder and a luxury.

He nods his head, an infinitesimal dip of permission, and Oikawa’s smile softens until his expression is unquestionably doting. He lifts a hand to grasp Kuroo’s chin between his fingers, bringing him an inch closer as he whispers, “Open your mouth for me.”

Oikawa dips forward before Kuroo can even obey, presses the head of his flushed cock to Kuroo’s gleaming lips and watches as Kuroo opens his mouth and presses a tender kiss to the slit of Oikawa’s cock. Gritting his teeth, Oikawa waits and watches as Kuroo glances up, cheeks still flushed in embarrassment and eyes eager to please as he peppers kisses along the base, to the underside of the head; he lets slip his tongue to taste a bead of precome and closes his eyes as Oikawa finally pushes forward until his cock is almost entirely in Kuroo’s mouth.

Oikawa’s hand comes up to thread through Kuroo’s thick hair, grabbing on and pulling lightly when he wants to control Kuroo’s pace, light, breathy groans he keeps relatively low escape his lips and incite Kuroo’s eyes to open once again. He watches every wave of pleasure roll up through Oikawa’s body, ever flicker of pleasure course over his features. His tongue presses hot and wet and his teeth scrape lightly when his technique gets a little sloppy. Oikawa doesn’t seem to mind, merely hisses when he feels the sharp edges and pulls Kuroo closer until his cockhead touches the back of Kuroo’s throat for just a single moment.

Kuroo’s just getting into a comfortable rhythm when Oikawa pulls him back and off of his cock by his hair, breathing out a deep contented sigh. He smiles down at Kuroo and says, “Ass up, please.”

Kuroo doesn’t need to be told twice; he lets his shoulders drop to the ground and raises his ass up in the air, legs spreading comfortably. He buries his face in his arms, though, because even though he’s more than enjoying himself, he’s also so embarrassed he could  _die_. Between the two of them, they keep fairly equal turns taking it up the ass, though Oikawa had recently discovered Kuroo’s crying face in the throes of passion and has been on a kick for it ever since.

It’s not like Kuroo’s complaining, honestly.

Oikawa moves around him, letting the fingertips of one hand trail over the sensitive skin of his back, down to his hip. He kneels behind him, settles in close, and wastes no time in positioning himself at Kuroo’s hole. He hesitates, just a flicker of a moment that Kuroo immediately understands, smiling with the reminder of just how  _gentle_  Oikawa inherently is, constantly seeking consent even when Kuroo is waving his ass in the air, so close to begging for it he can barely breathe. In answer, he pushes backwards until the head of Oikawa’s cock pushes in and his fingers tighten on Kuroo’s hips, both of them gritting their teeth, though Kuroo moans between his.

Oikawa moves quick and he moves fast; he pounds into him, using his grip on Kuroo’s hips to aid his pace, the slap of Kuroo’s almost nonexistent ass against the sharp angles of Oikawa’s hip bones is loud enough in the room that Oikawa starts to wonder if it’d been a lost cause to keep shushing Kuroo in the first place.

Regardless, he doesn’t slow his pace, especially not after Kuroo’s breathy nonsense moans start taking shape and forming into Oikawa’s name, shaky and telling of tears. Oikawa leans over him, never losing control of his pace, moaning into the damp skin of Kuroo’s shoulder blade. Even still, with voice quivering on the edge of pleasure, Oikawa asks, “Are you crying?”

“Mm,” Kuroo moans, utterly incoherent, still sort of trying to deny it. Oikawa laughs once more into the skin of his back, pressing kisses there as he feels the electric beginnings of his orgasm begin to unwind. He pushes even harder, his thighs and flanks straining, and Kuroo goes to pieces beneath him, shattering like glass. Oikawa’s orgasm comes while Kuroo’s final moan, Oikawa’s name, dispels in the quiet air of the dark room, and then it’s just a room full of them trying to catch their breath, lying side by side, hands threaded together, so familiar an image between them.

“You’re so loud,” Oikawa smirks, turning his head to look at Kuroo with a fondness not uncommon between them. Kuroo pushes forward slightly so that their foreheads touch, briefly, a tender expression of his affection.

“You’re to talk,” Kuroo fires back, grin quick as wildfire, sharp as a blade. Oikawa pouts, chest still heaving but gradually finding a balance.

Neither of them mentions the fact that they’ve made complete messes out of their trousers, or how they’re both still lying there exposed. Kuroo wonders about the contrast of how neat and pristine they had been at the beginning of the evening compared to now, with his pants around his ankles and Oikawa’s cock flushed and resting against his navel. Oikawa wonders if he had remembered to lock the door behind them.

Kuroo sighs, saying, “My uniform is a mess. Everyone’s going to know something suspicious happened.”

Oikawa snorts, turning to him with a raised eyebrow. “You were a train wreck before I got to you tonight. No one will notice anything different. Wrinkles and all.”

Kuroo squints at him, trying to decipher his sincerity from his sarcasm. After a short while, he smirks and says, “Do I hear a dejected tone? Bummed that my messy lifestyle makes it so difficult for people to know when you’ve fucked me?”

Oikawa’s cheeks pinken right under Kuroo’s gaze; Oikawa refuses to look at him and instead stares up at the ceiling with a pout. There are aftershocks running through him, making him feel newly electric, a storm in the process of being rekindled.

Oikawa sniffs. “So what? Is it that weird that I want people to know that I fucked you?”

“Not weird,” Kuroo pauses, contemplating. He grins over at Oikawa and squeezes his fingers, waiting for those honey-amber eyes to meet his once more. “And do you really think they  _don’t_  know?”

Oikawa’s smile rises over his face soft and sweet like summertime heat. He rolls over onto his side and snuggles against Kuroo’s chest, pressing a kiss to the ball of Kuroo’s shoulder. They rest that way for a few minutes longer, both of them with goofy smiles on their faces, thinking about how many people around them know exactly what they do to each other, exactly how they feel about each other, and pretend otherwise.

“Let’s be louder next time,” Oikawa says, out of the blue as they’re tidying their clothes, Kuroo slipping back into his tailcoat and Oikawa buttoning his trousers. Kuroo turns over his shoulder with an amused grin, rubbing self-consciously at the back of his neck.

He doesn’t say,  _but you told me to be quiet_ , or  _if we get any louder the entire building will know_.

Instead, he nods his head and smiles. He says, “Yeah,” and walks over to Oikawa, threading their fingers together when he reaches Oikawa’s outstretched hand. “Next time.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theme: Touch
> 
> Kuroo came to him in sweatpants with hair mussed and eyes heavy, every inch of him a screaming cacophony Oikawa doubted and ignored, but when they stepped out onto the stage together Kuroo Tetsurou touched him like a symphony.

On a proscenium stage in front of thousands of spectators, Kuroo Tetsurou’s hands hold Oikawa Tooru like he is stained glass; exceptional, and breakable.

His fingers, long and supine, curl around a delicate ankle, trace the dip and curve of bone, hold steady as Oikawa’s body slides elegantly into position, every movement deliberate and precise and  _perfect_. With a gentle push of both hands he helps lift Oikawa’s leg, perfectly pointed, up into the air—watches him find perfect balance on the tip of a toe, hand-crafted with layers of fabric and glue covered with satin.

Every line of Oikawa’s body is hard and defined; an angel carved from stone come alive on stage, every flexed muscle a love song about retribution, a call to the wings he’d left behind in the block of stone he’d carved his way out of just so that he could move freely across the stage.

Everything about the look of him is hard, defined, crafted without flaw like a porcelain doll and yet—he comes alive under the sweet touch of music and he moves like smoke, smooth and flowing and undeniably unreachable. Oikawa Tooru does not dance because he loves it, though that is certainly true, and he does not dance because he is naturally good at it, either, because he hadn’t always been good at it.

Oikawa Tooru dances because something inside of him sparks like the first signs of cosmic flame in his veins, coursing through him along with the rhythm of the music like a wildfire under his skin. He dances to get the stories the music wakes in him out of his system, to show the world what music can do to the human soul, how it can trick you into thinking you’re listening to the beauty of instruments playing and not realize that the music is making a beautiful instrument out of you, instead; how it spreads you out, long and taut, with strings warmly chosen, and it drags its callused fingertips over the fine cords of you, breathes life into your throat until every pore in your skin opens and sins for release.

Kuroo Tetsurou has never been one for telling stories. He much prefers to read them, to devour them, ingest them into the dark unknown territory beneath his veins and above his blood that he calls his soul; let them whisper their sweet nothings into his ear, licks of promises and dark sultry secrets only he can interpret in the ridges of his spiral fingertips, rubbing them raw against the pages of Oikawa’s storytelling skin.

He watches, transfixed as he always is even mid-performance, as Oikawa turns seamlessly on one toe, swift and steady as a building storm, the muscles of his right leg bracing and flexing and maintaining perfect balance as his left leg reaches up towards the ceiling and touches back against the floor once more, perfectly aligned. He completes a pirouette with three full turns, temporarily taking Kuroo’s breath away even as he places his hands on Oikawa’s waist, loose enough that he can barely feel them but close enough to cage him in; Oikawa’s arms come in to cage around his chest, his hair standing up at the ends as he turns over his shoulder and catches Kuroo’s eyes, alive with the secrets his body has transcribed between them.

Kuroo’s hand comes up and trails over the solid line of Oikawa’s bare shoulder, across the nape of his neck, wrapping around the cords of him there and bringing him into the shelter of his body, draping himself around him and moving with the flow of the music as it approaches its conclusion.

Cymbals clash and Oikawa throws Kuroo off of his body, leaps up with both legs extended out for a flicker of a second before spinning gracefully with arms intertwined above his head, his momentum turning his hair into a ruddy halo in the bright lights shining down on him. Coming out of his turns, his left leg braces behind him in a lunge and Kuroo throws himself into a swift and delicately precise turn, continuous and unbroken until he shifts with the music and begins to circle Oikawa’s panting form with rapid turns and leaps, his tempo increasing with that of the music playing over them.

The crowd in front of them is a sea of dark creatures thriving before them but Kuroo only has eyes for Oikawa, for the way that he drags his left foot across the stage and attempts to lunge away from Kuroo like prey from a predator, the biggest mistake. The music is almost entirely cymbals by the time Kuroo corrals Oikawa back where he wants him, turns him around and around in his arms until Oikawa’s hands are on his shoulders and Kuroo is lifting him into the air by his waist, wondering how someone so human and flawed can still be brighter than the white hot shine of the lights coming down from behind him, bright enough to cast their bodies into defined shadows.

The cymbals cut off and Kuroo lowers Oikawa’s chest to his lips as the tail end of the violins begin to close, dropping to his knees while keeping Oikawa lifted over him, sliding his lips up his chest, his throat, until Oikawa’s storybook fingers pressed the conclusion into Kuroo’s skin, trailing up from his shoulders to the sides of his neck, breathing new life into him with a promise of a sequel.

The music trails off and disperses as Oikawa’s forehead drops to Kuroo’s, his body slowly dropping until his knees come down between Kuroo’s thighs and they’re pressed so close together the breaths between them are barely even solely their own anymore. The crowd roars and applause thunders around them, the curtains racing towards them like a death sentence, their muscles screaming, their pulses thundering, and Oikawa leans in and whispers something soft and sweet into Kuroo’s ear just as the curtains swallow them whole.

 

✧

 

“You did well tonight.” Kuroo says, hours later when it’s just the two of them in their apartment, wearing nothing but soft, tired smiles and their underwear. The moon smiles down on them and kisses their skin in congratulations, letting them borrow some of her glow. Kuroo leans back against their washing machine, eyes half-lidded and heavy, watching Oikawa stretch his lean body, his shirt dangling from his deft fingertips.

“Damn right I did,” he responds, cheeky as always. Kuroo grins, quick and smooth, and feels heat pooling in his chest. Oikawa crosses the room and heads towards him, eyes a mere candle to the wildfire they’d been on stage but still hot enough to burn themselves into Kuroo’s mind, his body. Oikawa stops close enough that their thighs touch, just barely, and he smiles like satin and leans in to touch Kuroo’s chest like silk.

His hands slide down and slip beneath the waistband of Kuroo’s red boxers, rest comfortably on his jutting hipbones. He presses their navels together and Kuroo inhales Oikawa’s sigh, greedy and insistent now that they’re no longer on stage, now that he can focus on more than the way that Oikawa reacts to the music.

Oikawa’s breathy words are a symphony all their own; he says, “You weren’t so bad yourself, Tetsu.”

Kuroo’s tailbone presses back against the washing machine and he slides his fingers down past the waistband of Oikawa’s briefs, grabbing two handfuls of his firm ass and pulling him up to spread him against his navel. Oikawa laughs into his mouth, their teeth clacking, noses pressed together. His eyes are chestnut brown, as light as laughter, with a smile that’s chocolate-sweet. Kuroo smiles into the kiss, tugs playfully at Oikawa’s lower lip as he lets Oikawa’s body slide down against his until his feet are back on the floor and Kuroo’s hands are on his hips.

Oikawa pulls back and shivers, and both of them watch as the hairs on his arms stand up. He turns back to Kuroo with a sheepish expression, dipping forward to rest his cheek against Kuroo’s, hips fitting perfectly against the crest of Kuroo’s groin. Kuroo brings his hands up from Oikawa’s hips, slow and teasing, the touch barely there, until he reaches his shoulder blades. He rubs circles against them, trying to warm Oikawa in the small space of their laundry room; but the tile beneath their feet is like ice, the air cold enough to prickle their skin.

When Oikawa continues to nuzzle against him, his hands still pressing against the skin of Kuroo’s hips and his arms still covered in goose bumps, Kuroo pulls away. He ignores the small keening sound that comes from Oikawa’s throat at the distance put between them and heaves himself up and onto the dryer, getting comfortable before patting the space next to him with a shy grin, cheeks flushed.

“Eh?” Oikawa grunts, looking from the open space beside Kuroo and up to his gleaming ochre eyes. “Mm.”

Hoisting himself up next to his partner—in dance and in life—Oikawa hisses at the initial contact of his bare thighs on the cold lid of the dryer before making himself comfortable, slinging his legs over Kuroo’s and nestling up against his bare chest. Kuroo wraps an arm around him, brings him in good and close, hoping that their body heat will warm him enough to be comfortable.

The dryer rumbles beneath them, shifting and turning, gradually heating the lid underneath them until Oikawa is no longer shivering from the cold. He has rested his head on Kuroo’s shoulder and has begun to press kisses against Kuroo’s neck, needing the contact, the salty taste of his skin. Kuroo hums, kicking his feet lightly and letting Oikawa do whatever he wants, his heavy eyes slipping closed around the feeling of contentment deep in his chest.

Their relationship hadn’t always been like this. In fact, in the beginning, there hadn’t even been a relationship between them at all beyond being dance partners—when Kuroo was only interested in making a living for himself and Oikawa wanted to show the world that he was worth more than they’d ever imagined.

Kuroo’s strength has always been in his legs, his flexibility, his inability to not perfect a leap. Unlike many of the people he’d danced with throughout his life, falling has never been an issue for him. On stage, he is sure on his feet and trusts his ability; his legs are long and lean and he can leap further and higher than most, but he is strong, too. He can catch himself; he has never needed to worry about falling.

But then he was introduced to Oikawa Tooru who shined brighter than stars in a pitch black sky, who moved across the stage like a barely-contained storm, bursting at the seams, reaching out for the music surrounding him and greeting it like a lover’s homecoming, and, well, suddenly Kuroo thought maybe he should’ve paid closer attention to falling.

It hadn’t been love at first sight. Kuroo still isn’t sure he believes in that.  

But there  _had_  been something electrical, something lightning fast and elemental about the way his body’s chemistry had reacted to Oikawa’s the first time they had danced together. He’d been no stranger to touch, to putting his hands on a stranger’s skin to tell a story with their bodies for thousands of people to interpret. He’s used to learning the new dips and valleys of different people, of the weight of them in his hands as he lifts them into the air and helps anchor them back to the ground. He’s used to being familiar enough with their bodies to perform well, to tell a beautiful story that touches an audience and is beyond memorable.

The first time Kuroo danced with Oikawa his hands had poured over his skin like explorers finding the new world, like every dip and hollow of his muscular form had secrets only he could transcribe, like there was something magnetic about their skin coming together through touch, easy and inexorable, fluid and inexplicable, and it was like.

It was like Kuroo had been searching for so long and had finally found his target.

Soon Kuroo found himself memorizing the weight of Oikawa in his hands without ever intending to; he could feel it in the cords of muscle lining his arms, knew exactly how much pressure he’d have to exert to lift Oikawa into the air and how much to gently set him back on stable ground. His hands became greedy before he had a chance to get decisive about it, seeking confirmation over uncharted territory, slipping purposefully to places they didn’t belong in practice, even if it meant being reprimanded by Oikawa himself.

Kuroo had known that Oikawa had known what was happening and he’d been embarrassed about it, how could he not be? But there was no quenching his intrigue, his need to know Oikawa’s body past the boundaries of familiarity and into the uncharted land of second nature. Every line of him is cut, hard and chiseled, a living creature made of marble and his skin is just as smooth. He is only slightly smaller than Kuroo in frame and mass and height, but there is something fundamentally different about the way he is built.

Tree branch bone structure, lightning bright and just as quick; limbs of pale smoke and chestnut eyes on fire. Stained glass heart. Eggshell wings.

Oikawa moves like the passing of seasons, as smooth and spirited as Time. There isn’t a part of him that doesn’t participate in the dance, that doesn’t move to the music and invoke reactions from every person in the building. There isn’t a single part of him that doesn’t sing; he is blood boiling and popping, a near-constant stream of breath intermingled with scattered sighs, eyes sparking with sincerity.

Even in the flicker of silence before the curtains open and Kuroo stands with his hands pressed to Oikawa’s skin with nothing but the two of them sighing together in preparation, Kuroo can still hear Oikawa’s heart singing.

He has never experienced this level of infatuation with a partner before, and if he is being honest, that used to scare him. He used to look at Oikawa with narrowed eyes and wonder what it is about him that makes Kuroo feel self-conscious, makes him want to stand beside him even after their performance is long over.

For a while, Kuroo had convinced himself that Oikawa is only as enigmatic as his dancing and that any time outside of practice or performance he is just an ordinary human being, a little too obsessed with watching rival company performance recordings and running his hands through his own hair. That had made things easier, for a while. That way, he’d been able to accept that there is something special about Oikawa on a stage, something that calls for Kuroo’s undivided attention and makes his heart race against his ribcage, calling out in a quieter, lesser echo of the song Oikawa’s heart constantly plays in his ears.

But then, after a particularly stunning performance Oikawa had invited him over to his place for dinner, had reached out to touch Kuroo’s shoulder with those tree branch fingers, had smiled with those sunset pink lips and every nerve ending in Kuroo’s body had felt electrified. He’d said yes, of course he had, and that night Oikawa pressed those sunset lips to his and they whispered secrets above the clouds straight into Kuroo’s dry throat, lighting him up from the inside out.

It was easy, after that, to just accept how he feels about Oikawa Tooru. Naturally, Oikawa became as familiar to him as his own body; he is a living, breathing extension of Kuroo’s own soul, moving across the stage like an echo of everything Kuroo has ever wanted or needed.

Oikawa had always been on his own, transitioning through partners just as Kuroo had, always looking for someone who could match his passion, his talent, his strength. There is a necessary balance between dance partners, something that enables both of them to highlight one another’s strengths while compensating for any weaknesses. Oikawa had never found anyone who could keep up with him, who could do more than just hear the music, but could  _feel it_ , deep in their soul. He’d been waiting years for someone who could move in synch with him while maintaining a connection to the music, someone who could focus on emphasizing Oikawa’s role in the story so that he could return the favor. He wasn’t going to make it easy for them.

He’d responded the same way when he had met Kuroo: if he couldn’t keep up, then Oikawa would leave him behind. The music was his partner, moving through him and carving a story into his bones, along the fine strings of his muscles, singing through the movements of his body. He’d never found anyone who could compete with the music, who could make his eyes shine with passion, unadulterated and free, affected by every note.

Kuroo came to him in sweatpants with hair mussed and eyes heavy, every inch of him a screaming cacophony Oikawa doubted and ignored, but when they stepped out onto the stage together Kuroo Tetsurou touched him like a _symphony_.

Kuroo is a solid pillar, strong and stable, the only one capable of matching Oikawa’s speed and passion and strength, the only one who can help him soar. And there is something about Oikawa, some inherent chemical component that wakes Kuroo’s passion and makes him burn like fire on a rushing sea. They work together, as partners, but it is so much more than that—they  _work_  together.

Their partnership is a perfect balance: Kuroo’s speed and flexibility allow for him to keep up with Oikawa in every turn, his strength seamless in emphasizing Oikawa’s ability to soar through the air; Oikawa’s speed keeps Kuroo on his toes, his control seamless in maintaining his own momentum and velocity while enclosed in Kuroo’s arms, but it is his dexterity that makes their partnership easy.

There were no other dance partners after Kuroo met Oikawa; it was the two of them together, always, and neither of them would want it any other way.

Oikawa tilts his head up from Kuroo’s chest, kisses the underside of his strong chin and closes his eyes against the pulse ticking in his throat, listening close and breathing carefully until he’s certain, absolutely certain, that their hearts are singing to the same beat.

Oikawa smiles.

Together, they are an unexpected masterpiece. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theme: University  
> (Mature)
> 
> “I can’t believe you pulled the fire alarm just to see me,” Oikawa breathes against his lips, trailing kisses along his cheekbone and back down again until he can slide his tongue into Kuroo’s mouth, the gesture easy and familiar. Kuroo’s passion spikes, pushes him forward until his body weight is leaning almost fully against Oikawa and the door, pressing every line of them together. He pulls back with Oikawa’s lower lip between his teeth, releases it with a soft plop and laughs a little.
> 
> “I guess you could say the way I feel about you is… _alarming_.”

Oikawa Tooru had only been sleeping for two hours on the evening before the first day of finals week when the fire alarm went off.

He’d gotten a total of eight hours of sleep in the past three nights preparing for the five finals looming over him in the week to come and is now being corralled through the hallway to the stairwell, which he knows will lead him straight out into the masses of his entire dorm on the quad below, in nothing but a pair of teal boxers and a plain white shirt.

“Who is the  _idiot_  that set the alarm off?” He snaps, turning over his shoulder to glance at the equally infuriated students around him, narrowing in on what was arguably the most dangerous scowl present; Iwaizumi has  _six_  finals this coming week, after all. Someone jostles him from the side, knocking him into Iwaizumi, and he forces himself to count to ten instead of doing something he might regret.

“I don’t know,” Iwaizumi says, slow and careful. “But I’m going to  _find out_.”

Oikawa shivers at his best friend’s tone, but he nods his head all the same, continuing to head down the long hallway towards the stairs. “Yeah,” he agrees, rubbing at his arms to try to warm himself up. “I’m right there with you, Iwa-chan.”

The shuffle a few steps and stop, shuffle a few more and stop again. There are so many people on this floor it’s a wonder that anyone is moving at all, especially since the stairwell is so closed in—only wide enough to handle two single file lines. There’s a group of students laughing and pushing each other, trying to make light of the situation—Oikawa can, for a moment, understand and accept that they’d rather express delirious amusement than the underlying murderous rage he’s certain is there inside of them—until one of them pushes too hard and the guy directly in front of Oikawa crashes backwards right into him, square in the chest.

His shoulder hits the wall and his momentum is spinning him as he curses, putting his hands out to catch his fall, when another pair of hands latch onto his arms and yank him into the closest room, which for some reason had been left open. He watches, confused and speechless, as Iwaizumi gives a curious glance around the crowd, looking for him, as the door shuts between them.

“What the  _hell_ ,” Oikawa snaps, turning around and whipping himself out of the stranger’s grasp. He’s in an unfamiliar dorm room, the alarm still blaring in his ears and giving him a headache, and he blinks in the darkness of the room to make out the tall figure standing in front of him. When he  _does_ , his mouth drops open and his eyes open wide, utterly disbelieving.

“ _Kuroo_?”

“Hey,” Kuroo smiles, reaching a hand up to scratch idly at the back of his neck. “Long time no see.”

Oikawa stares at him, searching for words and coming up blank.  _Long time no see?_  What is with his flippant attitude? Not that it’s different from how he usually is, of course, but when there might be a fire in the dorm, when they’re so close to finals Oikawa can already taste the tears of his inadequacy in the face of several hundred multiple choice questions, how is he remaining so  _calm_?

“What are you doing? We’re supposed to be evacuating. There might be a fire in the dorms!”

But Kuroo’s already shaking his head, shutting that idea down with a gentle smile. “There isn’t a fire.”

Oikawa snorts. “Oh, really? And how do you know that?”

Kuroo shrugs his heavy shoulders, nonchalant, and says, “Because I pulled the fire alarm.”

A moment of silence; Oikawa staring up at Kuroo like he’s suddenly forgotten how to exist. His mouth is dry, his lips chapped, and his voice breaks around the words but he says them anyways, needs to make certain he isn’t hearing things.

“You pulled the fire alarm.”

“Yup.”

“ _You_  pulled the fire alarm.”

Kuroo smiles at Oikawa and it’s so fond that Oikawa has to take a step back, literally. He feels the hard paneling of the door against his shoulder blades and lets his weight rest against it, eyes still baby deer wide, voice still tight with emotion.

“Yes, Tooru. I pulled the fire alarm.”

Oikawa pictures Iwaizumi’s hands, fisted and brutal, pounding into the sharp planes of Kuroo’s face and has to clear his throat. He runs a hand up through his hair and then drags it down over his face, breathing out a heavy and shaky sigh. The alarm rings in his ears, constant and pitiless, an taunting echo he feels banging around inside of his skull. He takes another deep breath and tries to count to ten, fighting between the desire to lash out and the need not to, because.

Because this is  _Kuroo_ , the one that holds him close under the moonlight and presses kisses against his neck, his collarbones, his chest. This is the Kuroo that whispers filth into his ears in one moment and quiet endearments the next, unpredictable and embarrassing; constantly blushing and mortified at his own words and actions, but even more constantly willing to follow through with them.  _His_  Kuroo.

With this in mind, he controls his voice as best as he can, manages to bring it down to a strained inquiry. “Why the  _hell_  did you pull the fire alarm?”

Kuroo grins, sheepish. “I wanted to see you.”

Oikawa’s left eye twitches. “You can see me literally any time you want.”

“Not true,” Kuroo frowns, voice just this side of contrary. “I haven’t seen you for days and that definitely isn’t my doing.”

Oikawa rolls his eyes, gestures wildly. “It’s finals week! What do you expect? For me to just set aside my notes and any chance at future success in my chosen career just so that I can come over to your place and blow you?”

Kuroo’s grin is slow and sharp as sin but his cheeks flare red.

“That,” he says, laughing a little. “Or the reciprocal.”

“You are  _unbelievable_.”

Kuroo smirks, tilts his head a little and says, “Thanks.”

Shaking his head and trying to remember that whole count to ten thing, Oikawa bites hard onto his lower lip and clenches his fists, just once. He closes his eyes for a moment, gathering his restraint and fortifying his will so that no matter what he did not lash out because honestly, at this point in time, there is almost nothing more appealing than the thought of knocking Kuroo on his ass.

Instead, he opens his eyes into a critical glare and says, “So let me get this straight. You thought that pulling the _fire alarm_ , disturbing not only me but also our entire dorm on the day before finals week begins, was your best option.”

Kuroo smirks, complacent. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Oh my God.” Oikawa breathes, slowly shaking his head. There’s only so much restraint he can practice, truly. He tries to process the situation, he truly does, but then he looks up into Kuroo’s heavy-lidded ochre eyes, traces the sharp angle of his cheekbones, the hard edge of his jaw line, and suddenly his mind is filled with nothing but Kuroo and  _possibilities_.

Kuroo isn’t even wearing a shirt, just a pair of black boxers and some really old socks that have holes in them, and yet even still, Oikawa’s heart stutters in his chest. His eyes jump, unbidden, to the strong heavyset shoulders, the defined lines of Kuroo’s abs, his lithe thighs and back to his gleaming eyes.

They can both still hear everyone in the hallway, thrumming and thriving like an angry beehive being funneled out into the open air, just on the other side of the door Oikawa is leaning on. Oikawa’s breathing deepens just as Kuroo steps towards him, a single step, slightly hesitant, and then another, until he’s standing toe-to-toe with Oikawa pressed between the door at his back and Kuroo’s chest at his front.

“Kuroo,” he whispers, and even though he’s a little nervous about being caught, there’s an underlying tone of excitement that makes Kuroo grin. He rests a hand against the side of Oikawa’s head so that his thumb can tilt Oikawa’s chin up, just enough to be able to receive his lips as he leans down towards him.

Kuroo kisses him and it’s like breathing new life once again, a constant reminder that whatever it is between them is something special, something to be coveted. Kuroo’s free hand reaches around him until it rests against his tailbone, applying the gentlest amount of pressure so that Oikawa’s hips are pressed forward. Kuroo hums into the warmth of Oikawa’s mouth, licks his chapped lips and frowns against them.

Oikawa lifts up onto the tips of his toes, pressing their chest together and sliding his hands around Kuroo’s neck, holding him close. He bites at Kuroo’s bottom lip until it stings, smiling into the hiss Kuroo offers in response.

“I can’t believe you pulled the fire alarm just to see me,” Oikawa breathes against his lips, trailing kisses along his cheekbone and back down again until he can slide his tongue into Kuroo’s mouth, the gesture easy and familiar. Kuroo’s passion spikes, pushes him forward until his body weight is leaning almost fully against Oikawa and the door, pressing every line of them together. He pulls back with Oikawa’s lower lip between his teeth, releases it with a soft plop and laughs a little.

“I guess you could say the way I feel about you is… _alarming_.”

“Oh my  _God_.” Oikawa’s mouth drops open and he honestly,  _honestly_  cannot believe that this is his reality. He wants to be put out, he really does, but amusement traces every line of his face and warms him like a lover, ever constant in the face of the things that Kuroo Tetsurou has the nerve to say to him. “You are the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met.”

“You love me anyways,” Kuroo whispers, and it’s a question just as much as it is a confirmation. Kuroo doesn’t express insecurity often and when he does it isn’t critical, it isn’t an issue. Sometimes, as Oikawa has discovered, he simply just likes to hear the affirmation and if Oikawa is being completely honest with himself, he has all too much fun giving it.

He grins into Kuroo’s next kiss, one that’s slow and sweet and makes his toes curl into the carpet. “I do,” he says, “Tetsu is the  _fire_  of my loins, after all.”

Kuroo snorts against his lips, shaking his head. “That was terrible.”

Oikawa pouts, pulling back and exposing the long line of his fair neck. He sniffs, running his fingers up Kuroo’s neck and into his hair. Kuroo dips down and presses his lips tenderly to Oikawa’s offered pulse, kisses gently for a moment before he begins to suck, to leave his mark. Oikawa doesn’t think about the consequences, doesn’t even register that eventually they  _are_  going to have to evacuate and now he’s going to reappear in front of his friends with a hickey and no easy explanation.

In the face of Kuroo’s enthusiasm, he just doesn’t care to think about it.

Kuroo makes quick work of the hickey, sucks hard and long until it’s a purple splash against the fair skin of Oikawa’s neck, and then he moves down to the hallow of his throat, the center of his chest. Kuroo kisses his entire way down over Oikawa’s shirt until he’s kneeling between Oikawa’s feet and one of his hands is pushing up the hem of Oikawa’s shirt so that his lips can kiss Oikawa’s navel. Oikawa threads his fingers through Kuroo’s hair and forgets entirely to try to control his breathing, instead he watches, spellbound, as Kuroo’s fingertips slide into the waistline of his teal boxers and his lips move over the strained material to press against Oikawa’s erection.

Kuroo tugs the boxers down his legs to pool at his ankles and Oikawa loses all sense of rational, watching with his bird’s eye view as his cock springs free and Kuroo’s eyes flutter back up to his once again, bright and shining. He smiles as he presses his lips in a gentle kiss against Oikawa’s slit, and then he opens his mouth and Oikawa’s head falls back against the hard paneling of the door, a moan resonating deep and low from his very core.

Students continue to shuffle along in the hallway, none of them suspecting that two guys might be tucked away in a stranger’s room—that, the more he looks at it, Oikawa thinks might actually be  _Kindaichi’s_  room—doing questionable things to one another.

The alarm continues to blare and Oikawa struggles to breathe anything more than Kuroo’s name in hushed tones, his fingers tightening in feathered black hair, thigh muscles tight and strained.

Kuroo works hard and mentally pats himself on the back for plan execution.

Oikawa shivers, a broken cry stuttering from his gleaming lips.

Kuroo feels hopeful about finals.

✧

  
“Where’ve you been?” Iwaizumi asks the moment Oikawa reappears at his side, out of breath and slightly dazed. The grass beneath their feet is cold but thankfully not wet and Oikawa’s body is a little overheated at the moment anyways, so the cold outside air feels quite good on his skin. Oikawa’s still in nothing but his boxers and his plain white shirt except now he has the wonderful accessory of a hickey on his neck, which Iwaizumi notices right away with a bland expression.

“Do I want to know?” he asks before Oikawa can even get a word out. Oikawa pauses, a smile rising soft and sweet over his expression.

“Probably not,” he sings, bringing a pointer finger up into the air between them. “But I’d be happy to  _tell_ ~”

“Say another word about it,” Iwaizumi threatens, “and I’ll kill you.”

Oikawa playfully pantomimes zipping his lip and throwing out the key, though he does throw a wink in there for good measure. As he’s doing so, Kuroo appears through the crowd and heads towards them, a small smile on his face. His eyes are equally as dazed as Oikawa’s and when he comes to a stop beside him his eyes immediately go to the hickey on the left side of Oikawa’s neck.

“Hey,” Iwaizumi greets, completely, wonderfully unsuspicious of Kuroo’s sudden appearance. Kuroo nods at him in greeting, crossing his arms over his chest.

“How long do you think we’ll be out here?” Oikawa asks, making idle conversation. Iwaizumi shrugs.

“Not long. I’m sure there’s no actual fire.”

“That’s good.” Oikawa sighs, suddenly remembering that he has  _finals_  to study for and that he’d just spent an indeterminable amount of time utterly oblivious to that fact. His eyes are a little wider than normal when he realizes that Kuroo’s plan, while ridiculous and terrible, had worked better than either of them would have ever expected. Oikawa hadn’t even remembered about his finals until this moment and finds himself getting flustered and angry all over again at the realization that because of Kuroo and his plan he is going to miss out on some much needed sleep.

Never mind the fact that Kuroo had been duly rewarded for his plan and Oikawa had offered a share of his own reward moments afterwards.

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi agrees, and Oikawa literally watches as his expression gathers shadows. “But I won't forget about this. I’m gonna find the asshole who did this and destroy him.”

Oikawa and Kuroo do not look at each other. They both swallow heavily.

Oikawa breaks out of it fairly quickly, laughing and slapping a hand on Iwaizumi’s shoulder in a show of camaraderie. “Of course! Pulverize him when you find him, Iwa-chan!”

He’s smiling so much Iwaizumi just nods and out of the corner of Oikawa’s eyes, he sees Kuroo swallow again. In that moment, at long last, the fire alarm shuts off and someone from the administration that has been given a loud speaker announces that it’s safe to return to their rooms. Iwaizumi sighs, glad for the news, and starts off ahead without waiting for either of them.

Everyone begins to head back to their dorms and Kuroo and Oikawa walk together, side-by-side. Even with all of the stress accumulating from finals and the fact that he’s quickly running out of time for sleep and studying, Oikawa feels relaxed, quite content. A part of him knows that this is directly in response to his recent orgasm but most of him agrees to settle on him simply being happy at Kuroo’s side, close enough to feel the heat of him. With Kuroo there, a tall and sturdy anchor beside him, Oikawa feels like he can do anything.

Oikawa reaches out and grabs Kuroo’s hand, threading their fingers together with a gentle squeeze as he smiles up at Kuroo with an innocent expression punctuated with a cunning smirk, and as always, Kuroo wonders what he’s getting himself into. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the last day of oikuro week over on tumblr, so the ficlets I add after this will come from prompts I find elsewhere or any random inclination I have for short oikuro shenanigans! Thank you for reading them so far c:
> 
> Theme: Free Day!
> 
> “Nice to see you again, Tooru.” Kuroo responds, letting his most winning smile rise over his face. Oikawa Tooru glances up from his clipboard with a scowl, his lips cherry red as though he’s recently had a lollipop or a Jolly Rancher; he lifts his hand and points his pen at Kuroo, vaguely threatening.
> 
> “I’ve told you a hundred times, we are doctor and patient. Please call me _Dr. Oikawa_.”
> 
> or: Kuroo does stupid shit and Oikawa's his doctor AU

“This is the third time in two weeks that I’ve seen you.”

Kuroo Tetsurou glances up from his bandaged fingers and the slow transition of the gauze as it shifts from its normal pearly white to a rusty scarlet; his idly kicking feet settle and he smiles when he sees the frowning face of his doctor as he shuts the door behind him and brings his clipboard up before him.

“Nice to see you again, Tooru.” Kuroo responds, letting his most winning smile rise over his face. Oikawa Tooru glances up from his clipboard with a scowl, his lips cherry red as though he’s recently had a lollipop or a Jolly Rancher; he lifts his hand and points his pen at Kuroo, vaguely threatening.

“I’ve told you a hundred times, we are doctor and patient. Please call me  _Dr. Oikawa_.”

Kuroo laughs a little and raises his bandaged hands, placating. Oikawa’s eyes jump to his hands and his scowl melts into a displeased frown; he glances over Kuroo’s paperwork once more and sighs, setting his clipboard on the counter. He slips some gloves onto his deft hands and moves towards Kuroo with a flutter of his lab coat, getting close enough that Kuroo can see his beige button-up and the fact that the top two buttons are undone. From what Kuroo can see, Oikawa’s chest is smooth and defined and fair enough to flush should he get embarrassed enough to have a physiological reaction; Kuroo feels like those two undone buttons are a challenge and he gladly accepts.

Oikawa’s hands are gentle and sure when they begin to unravel Kuroo’s makeshift bandages, his eyes unwavering from his task. Kuroo takes the time and their close proximity to study the subtle shift of honeyed gold in Oikawa’s eyes, the way they flicker and gleam in the shadows cast from his bangs. He studies Oikawa’s pert nose, his chapped lips, and the strong line of his jaw; he wonders if there is any part of Oikawa that is not pristine.

Oikawa finishes unraveling Kuroo’s bandages and clicks his tongue at the sporadic nicks and cuts, some of which are still bleeding, even an hour after the cause.

“How did this happen again?”

Kuroo grins, sheepish. “I was juggling knives.”

“And what?” Oikawa snorts, gently turning Kuroo’s hands in his own. “You tried to catch all of them when you lost momentum?”

“Actually, yes.” Kuroo smiles shyly when Oikawa glances up at him, incredulous and unamused. He shakes his head, a slow and judgmental movement, and traces a particularly angry cut along Kuroo’s left palm. He clicks his tongue again, the preface of a sigh, and lets Kuroo’s hands fall lightly back into his lap. He strips off his gloves, disposes of them, and begins writing on his clipboard again.

“Luckily for you, none of them look bad enough to need stitches. All you really need is Neosporin and new bandages. Hopefully you have those.”

“I do.”

“Good,” Oikawa nods, finishing whatever note he’s adding to Kuroo’s hefty stack of paperwork. He reaches into the cupboard above the sink and pulls out a small tube and a roll of new bandages; far more pristine than the ones Kuroo has at home. He comes back to Kuroo’s side and lifts his hand again, dabbing some Neosporin across his wounds and then seamlessly bandaging his hands. His wrists are delicate and his fingers certain, lacking any and all hints of hesitation. He lifts his eyes to Kuroo’s unwavering stare and smirks a little and Kuroo feels his cheeks get hot, just that easily.

“My advice?” Oikawa says, voice pitched low. He secures the bandage and holds Kuroo’s hand for a moment longer than necessary, honey eyes gleaming in the LED lights overhead. “No more knife juggling.”

Kuroo laughs, a little out of breath and lost in the smooth line of Oikawa’s cracked smile. “Right, yeah.”

Oikawa pauses a moment, glancing back and forth between Kuroo’s ochre eyes, and then he laughs a little; there’s a lightness between them, some sort of familiarity that feels almost teasing.

Oikawa says, “Good.” And then he picks up Kuroo’s chart and gives him a haughty smirk as he turns for the door, preparing to move on to his next patient.

“Wait,” Kuroo blurts, blinking. Oikawa’s smile slips a little, his eyes curious as he looks over his shoulder. Kuroo’s still sitting there on the table, shifting a little and making the wax paper beneath him crackle loudly in the silence of the room. He fidgets with his new bandages for just a moment before glancing back up to Oikawa with a self-assured grin. “See you soon, Dr. Oikawa.”

Oikawa’s arrogant smirk instantly shifts into a scowl, his right eye twitching.

“Hopefully not.” He responds, eyes searching Kuroo’s expression wonderingly. Every line of him is disapproving, Kuroo can see that well, but even still—even still he think there’s something about that gleam in Oikawa’s eyes, something amused and interested and hopeful.

Kuroo merely grins at him as he leaves the room.

  
✧

Oikawa Tooru’s shoulders heave up with a sigh large enough to lift his entire chest cavity, releases it through his nose and lets his eyes focus on the chart hanging on the door of room one. He reaches for it, feels the familiar weight of it on his fingertips and pushes his lips to the side absentmindedly as he glances over his patient’s record, though by now he must admit that he knows it by heart.

He gives a quiet one-two knock on the door before pushing it open and stepping through, lifting his head to take in the sight of Kuroo Tetsurou and his steadfast grin as he shuts the door behind him. He feels pressure behind his right eye and wants to sigh again, wondering how quickly this headache is going to come on.

“What is it this time, Kuroo?”

“Nice to see you again.” Kuroo answers, his smile lifting. Oikawa pulls his rolling chair over and perches on the cushion of it, flexing his strained shoulders. He glances at the massive band-aid stuck to Kuroo’s chin, the jagged edge of an abrasion just barely peeking around the edges of it, close enough to just barely touch the edge of his lower lip. He glances down to his hands and sees minimal damage, though his forearms are a different matter.

“Is it really?” Oikawa asks, expression indignant. “With road rash on your forearms and chin?”

“Could’ve been worse,” Kuroo shrugs, and his smirk is so self-assured Oikawa feels a flicker of irritation swell in his gut. He makes a note on Kuroo’s paperwork and sets the clipboard on the counter before turning back to Kuroo with an impish grin.

He sighs; says, “Let me take a look at those arms of yours.”

Kuroo bobs his head and lifts his arms so that the worst of the damage faces Oikawa, who stands from his seat and comes over to gently shift them into better lighting. He bites on his lower lip, concentrating on the wounds even as he asks how they’d been caused. His aid had already taken down the reason as was routine, but hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth was just as important.

“So I got this new pair of Heelys,” Kuroo begins, and his eyes are bright with excitement, lacking any and all traces of regret or repentance. Clearly he doesn’t care much about his own personal safety, not in the face of something as mind-blowing as a new pair of shoes with wheels in the bottom, or maybe the delight of getting to see Oikawa so much. Oikawa mentally disbands that thought immediately, almost physically shaking his head to be rid of the notion at all. No one in their right mind would ever purposefully get injured badly enough to see a doctor just to _get to see the doctor_.

But then again, he does see Kuroo more often than he sees any other patient; and sometimes even more often than some of his own friends—the guy gets injured  _a lot_. He pauses with his thumb tracing lightly over the deepest of cuts, listening halfheartedly to Kuroo’s action-packed story about some Heelys race he’d initiated with an indifferent employee of the local skate park.

“So Ushijima-san was winning and I couldn’t believe it because, I mean, the guy’s only had Heelys for a  _week_  and I’ve had mine for  _ages_  but, well, he is pretty built and he’s got a lot of leg strength.”

Oikawa nods distractedly, interrupts him for a moment to quietly say, “These aren’t so bad.” He lets Kuroo’s arms rest against his lap and swallows as Kuroo blinks at him. “I’m gonna look at your chin now.”

“Right,” Kuroo says, a little breathless. He nods his head and tilts his chin up the slightest bit, making it easier for Oikawa to slip his adroit fingertips under the edges of his Scooby-Doo band-aid. He pauses in his story for a moment, long enough to let Oikawa carefully peel the band-aid away from his abrasions, and then continues a little disjointedly.

“But whatever; so he’s winning and then out of nowhere I just got this huge burst of energy, a second wind, if you will.”

Oikawa nods again, his fingertips gentle as he tilts Kuroo’s chin and watches the light splash over the sharp cut of his jaw, highlighting the pink lines of his abrasions. He holds Kuroo’s chin in his hands and realizes that he’s looking at Kuroo with more than just his usual clinical gaze, but something that feels strangely like genuine interest. His eyes, slightly narrowed and wholly confused, glance back up to Kuroo’s; he studies him aptly, curious and suspicious and a little out of his league in wonder. Kuroo is so enraptured with his own story, possibly reliving the memory, that he doesn’t seem to notice right away or even at all. Oikawa’s hand holds his chin and doesn’t move and neither of them notice.

"After that it’s kind of a blur of me passing him a few yards before the finish line and then tumbling down into a construction pit.”

Oikawa glances up at him through his eyelashes, expression furrowed in a mix of pity and mystification. He wants desperately to laugh at Kuroo, to ask him why a full-grown man is still wearing Heelys and more than that, why he’s initiating races with innocent local employees; but there’s something about the excitement in his eyes that turns them wildfire bright and just as alluring, drawing Oikawa in, a moth to his flame. He leans forward, an unconscious gesture, and Kuroo’s smile falls a little, his eyes narrowing in sudden startled focus.

Later, when Oikawa is standing with his back pressed to the inside of his office door with a shaking hand pressed to his mouth and eyes wide as saucers, he’ll delude himself into thinking that Kuroo had been the one to initiate the kiss.

Kuroo closes his eyes and presses forward against Oikawa’s lips, brings a hand up to thread his fingers into Oikawa’s hair and hold him there until his tongue can slip out and touch the chapped edge of Oikawa’s lower lip. Oikawa opens his mouth around a quiet gasp, his eyes squeezed shut with brows furrowed with something caught between confusion at his own actions and an undeniable, uncontrollable need to remain there, letting Kuroo work at his lips with a familiarity that surprises the both of them.

When Kuroo shifts and focuses on kissing Oikawa’s upper lip with a tenderness that makes Oikawa’s heart toss like waves, he pulls back with an audible breath. He opens his eyes and stares wide-eyed and afraid at the surprised but overwhelmingly fond expression on Kuroo’s face, warm as a sunrise and just as much of a wake-up call.

Oikawa flinches, makes a move towards the clipboard on the counter to make it look as though he’d meant to. He doesn’t look at Kuroo, even when he whispers his name, a whispered question left answered. He clears his throat and smiles, his voice chipper and unshaken.

“The good news is that your injuries aren’t bad at all. All you have to do is apply more Neosporin and keep them clean.”

“Tooru,” Kuroo whispers again, a little more insistent and yet not unkind. Oikawa’s head jerks to the side, a clear rejection even as he turns in Kuroo’s direction with a smile that doesn’t touch his eyes.

“If you have no other concerns, I’ll take my leave.”

Kuroo sighs, a quiet, dejected ghost of a breath. He shakes his head and his eyes are the slightest bit reproachful, but then he blinks and there’s nothing but resilience staring back at Oikawa.

Oikawa doesn’t give him time to say anything else, he simply whispers, “Take care of yourself,” and flutters through the door, pale and slight as an apparition.

Kuroo Tetsurou stares at the open door for a moment, then lets his eyes drop back to his hands, slightly scuffed and steadier than he’s ever seen them.

He lifts his fingertips to his lips, and he smiles.

✧

Three and a half weeks later, Kuroo gets the flu.

There is no pretense this time, he’s honestly just sick and in need of a prescription. He isn’t really worried about it, either. He calls and makes his appointment and everything in his usual routine goes without a hitch; he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous about seeing Oikawa again, but his excitement is more affluent than his anxiety.

It’s when he gets to the office and the aid tells him that Dr. Oikawa has called in sick that he gets a little flustered. He gives Oikawa the benefit of the doubt and sees a different doctor and receives his prescription; he’s in and out of the doctor’s office in minutes, save the time he’d had to spend in the waiting room.

He heads home and takes his medicine and gets a lot of rest, so much rest, in fact, that he’s left with ample time to focus on his thoughts.

His thoughts, as it seems, revolve around Oikawa like a moth to a flame. He can’t shake the feeling that even though Oikawa might actually be sick he’s also intentionally avoiding Kuroo, and that unsettles him enough to shake his usual calm disposition.

Of course, because he wants to see Oikawa desperately and the world, apparently, loathes him, his next injury comes over a month later when he’s had far too much time to himself and far too  _little_  of seeing Oikawa—and even then, the injury is nothing to fuss over, not nearly bad enough to seek a doctor’s fine focus.

So Kuroo does something he has yet to do: he lies.

It’s simple enough to call in and tell the aid working the front desk that he has a suspicious mole on his shoulder blade, that he wants his doctor to check it out. He waits, a little breathlessly, to hear if she is going to tell him that Oikawa is out again with some mysterious sickness, but to his everlasting relief, she doesn’t. Instead, in a voice that’s pitched low but sounds amiably supportive, she says, “Dr. Oikawa looks forward to seeing you.” And Kuroo has to wonder if maybe, in some small way, she is rooting for him.

Kuroo dresses up a little this time because he’s a little nervous and he wants to make a good impression; it’s been so long since he’s seen Oikawa and he always looks so pristine and professional—so much so that Kuroo constantly has daydreams about messing him up just enough to make him seem more attainable, closer to Kuroo’s reach.

Not that Kuroo isn’t into his pristine looks, too; that’s a whole other story, a whole other genre of daydreams.

Kuroo’s idea of dressing up is, of course, to put on a shirt that has buttons and wear a pair of pants that aren’t workout pants. So he throws on a white button-up and pushes the sleeves up past his elbows, pairs it with a pair of tight black jeans and debates on whether or not to wear his new Heelys. He decides against it, only because he thinks he’s going to have to warm Oikawa up to them and that’s going to take time and energy he’ll have to set aside when the air between them isn’t so heavy.

Sitting in the room on that noisy wax paper with his feet swinging idly in a pair of plain old sneakers he often wears to his intramural volleyball team, Kuroo waits, filled with anticipation and the kind of determination he usually approaches a game with. Oikawa is even more of a challenge, he thinks, though that only makes Kuroo all the more interested.

He hears the gentle one-two knock that always precedes his favorite doctor’s entrance and looks up with a stern stare and a gentle smile, his swinging feet coming to a stop. Oikawa pushes through the door with his head slightly bowed towards Kuroo’s paperwork and for a moment Kuroo thinks he’s still running, that he’s still afraid; but then he glances up at Kuroo and meets his eyes directly, a kind smile rising over his lips.

“Hey,” he says, appearing utterly relaxed. “Long time no see.”

“Too long,” Kuroo says, immediate. Oikawa gives him a reprimanding look but there’s not much bite to it; he doesn’t glance at Kuroo’s records again and sets the clipboard on the counter, interlacing his fingers and letting them rest against his lower abdomen.

“I hear you have a questionable mole on your shoulder blade.” Oikawa says and Kuroo’s eyes narrow, accepting this direct method of avoidance. Even with his sweet grin and his saccharine voice, there’s a quiver of tension in the frame of his lightning bolt stature, fraying at the edges but electric and focused to the core. Kuroo’s eyes dance over his expression, the slight bags under his eyes and the tired lines on the sides of his nose; the slight disarray of his hair, normally so immaculate. His color even looks off.

Either the illness that had taken him away from work had truly been terrorizing him or something else in his life had had a similarly detrimental effect. A part of Kuroo instantly wonders what doctors do when they become sick—do they just go to another doctor? Do they prescribe themselves medication? But then his next thought, so quick it’s almost unbidden, involves the possibility of Oikawa losing sleep and sanity over the thought of Kuroo and what he’s to do with him.

Some small part of Kuroo tucked deep and away in the darkest shadows of him hopes for the latter, but the rest of him, an overwhelming majority, hopes that Oikawa’s suffering had nothing to do with Kuroo at all. He’s in too deep to be aimlessly selfish when it comes to Oikawa; he wants him safe, happy, and healthy, even if that means he’s not a part of the picture at all—even if it means he  _can’t ever be_.

“Yeah,” Kuroo whispers, slowly nodding his head as his eyes jump away from the strained lines of Oikawa’s face to meet his eyes, watching the way they flicker. Oikawa’s hands are fairly steady, but Kuroo has known him for a long time, has been under those hands enough times to know their consistent state and this, this almost-steadiness they’re currently exhibiting? This isn’t normal.

The illness, the disturbance—whatever it is, it’s still lingering.

Oikawa comes over to him with a fragile smile, gesturing gracefully with one hand for Kuroo to turn so that Oikawa has access to his shoulder blades. Kuroo doesn’t move, not a hair, his eyes watching carefully as Oikawa’s smile falters. The flicker of irritation that runs across his face is familiar to Kuroo, comforting even. He wants to call it back, to encourage it, so instead of turning and going along with his ruse, he nips it in the bud and stares Oikawa down with that same resolute gaze Oikawa is so used to seeing.

“Actually,” he says, blinking slowly. “There is no questionable mole.”

Oikawa’s expression shifts as slow as a storm building, clouding into something between confused and suspicious.

“I’m sorry?” he says, waiting for an explanation. Kuroo offers one with a quick grin, uncaring that he’s here because of a lie.

“I lied,” he explains. “So that I could see you.”

Kuroo watches as Oikawa’s expression closes off in an instant, becomes a mask of poorly executed indifference. If Oikawa Tooru is anything, it’s passionate. He does not do well in veiling his emotions, in trying to block out the way he feels.

“This isn’t funny, Kuroo.”

“It’s not supposed to be funny,” he laughs, a short and quiet thing, honest as bones. “It’s supposed to be endearing.”

“Endearing?” Oikawa takes a step back, suddenly realizing how close he is and how intent Kuroo’s gaze is. Kuroo, for the first time since he’d met Oikawa Tooru, hops off of the doctor’s bed and stands in front of Oikawa, the slightest bit taller. Oikawa’s eyes go wide and Kuroo sees a hint of color bleed through his cheeks like stained glass.

“Yeah,” he nods, tucking his hands into his pockets so that he has something to do with them. “I missed you.”

“I think you’re misunderstanding something here,” Oikawa begins, his voice finally faltering, a tiny crack that gives Kuroo everything. He smiles, shaking his head as he realizes that even though he’d come here hoping Oikawa might think  _him_  charming, it’s  _Oikawa_  that’s truly endearing. He takes a cautious step forward and Oikawa scowls at him, the breaking of his indifferent mask. Kuroo almost laughs at how easy it is to bring his true self to the surface, how easy it is to rile him up. He drags his eyes over the unbuttoned collar of Oikawa’s button-up shirt, brings them back to Oikawa’s and smirks.

“Are you afraid?” he interrupts just as Oikawa opens his mouth to say something more, silencing him.

Oikawa scoffs. “Of course not.”

“Are you uninterested?”

Oikawa stills. He’s silent for a long time, his eyes flickering over Kuroo’s expression, jumping to the disarray of his skyward facing hair, the sharp line of his jaw line, the thick cords of his throat, the wide set of his shoulders. Oikawa swallows and Kuroo has to forcefully prevent himself from taking another step towards him.

Oikawa is strong and steady and confident like no one Kuroo has ever met before, but at the moment, he looks very much like a delicate baby bird, easily broken if handled clumsily. It feels wrong to think it, to see him that way, and it’s almost as though Oikawa can hear the thought forming as he straightens up with shoulders thrust back and his eyes twin pits of amber flame.

“I’m not uninterested.” He answers, cocking his head to the side. He crosses his arms over his chest and rests his weight on his hip, looking more and more like the Oikawa that Kuroo is so familiar with the more his mannerisms slip through. His color is returning in the form of a blush but it does wonders for making him look like he's recovering, like Kuroo's irritating personality is slowly bringing him back up to speed.

Kuroo smiles, a delicate shift, and asks, “Then what’s holding you back?”

Oikawa’s answer is immediate, his eyes flashing with the words. “You’re my patient.”

“Yeah,” Kuroo nods. “So?”

Flustered, Oikawa taps his foot, looks over to the sink at his right elbow and fidgets.

“You’re kind of an idiot.”

Kuroo snorts out a laugh, startled and amused. “Yeah, that’s true too.”

Oikawa chews on his lip, still chapped, still cherry red, and shakes his head. “Not like that,” he says, trying to find the right words to explain just what kind of idiot Kuroo is. “You’re constantly getting injured.”

Kuroo waits a moment to see if he’ll continue and feels a comfortable flush of warmth surround his heart, his lips curling into a smirk.

“Do I hear concern?”

“Oh my God.” Oikawa groans, and the strong battle lines he’d set his body into crumble in an instant as he lowers his head into the palm of his hand and sighs, exhausted. Kuroo tilts his head and sees that he’s smiling, though, and when he straightens again not only does he look amused, but his entire body looks relaxed.

“You’re ridiculous; I don’t know how I tolerate you.”

Kuroo knows his moment when he sees it; he takes his hands from his pockets and steps closer to Oikawa, first a single step, and then a second when he sees Oikawa’s lips curl around a smirk. He’s shaking his head, his hands resting against his sides, loose and comfortable.

When he’s finally close enough, Kuroo lifts a hand and tucks some of Oikawa’s wayward hairs behind his ear, lets his fingertips linger to trace the sharp edge of his high cheekbone. Oikawa lets him, goes so far as to close his eyes and let Kuroo simply get a feel for him. He opens his chapped lips around a ghost of a sentence long overdue and Kuroo thinks that there isn’t a force on Earth that could prevent him from leaning in close and tasting those words against his own lips.

“Idiot or not, I think I like you.”

He kisses Oikawa soft and sweet, threads his fingers through his hair and tilts his chin up for better reach. Oikawa’s hands come to rest on his sides, firm and gloriously lacking in hesitation. Kuroo kisses his chapped lips with a smile he can’t contain, opening his eyes to see Oikawa staring up at him with wide-eyed wonder.

“Took you long enough, Tooru.”

Rolling his eyes, Oikawa pulls him back in and closes his eyes; this time he meets Kuroo’s smiling kiss with one of his own, pulling away a moment later because he can’t resist giving a snarky rejoinder.

“Shut up and kiss me, Tetsurou.”

Kuroo, for his part, is all too happy to oblige.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering, "Where the heck did _Heelys_ come from?!" I graciously point you in the direction of my Heelys fic [Hot Wheels](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2301056).
> 
> What a wild ride B)


End file.
